Today, the Official PlayStation Blog posted a video that officially revealed Sony’s long-rumored answer to Nintendo’s Super Smash Bros. franchise. The game is officially titled “PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale”, and the 2D brawler – previously known as “Title Fight” – appears to be very much like the popluar Nintendo series. Of course, it also seems to have its own inexplicably sleek, sexy, Sony style.
Though we still know very little about the content featured in PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale, we can finally start to do more than just speculate about the roster of fighters or gameplay mechanics that may or may not have been featured in this game. Without further delay, we would like to present our “First Look” at PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale. We have scavenged the official video, studied screenshots, and collected any and all the tidbits of information we could find related to the game – we’ve even made some educated guesses here and there.
Keep reading for all the details we currently know about Sony’s upcoming brawler.
In case you haven’t seen it, you should probably check out the footage of PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale that was posted on the Official PlayStation Blog today. Once you’ve gotten caught up to speed, continue reading and I’ll discuss the characters, stages, and direct comparisons to the Super Smash Brothers franchise:
Sony’s A-Team Is In The House:
In the first footage of the game, you can see half a dozen PlayStation All-Stars featured in Battle Royale, but there are many more that appear to be making the cut in the final roster that aren’t shown in the video.
An image depicting characters from PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale, some not shown in the footage.
The first official image of the game (seen above) depicts a number of characters that haven’t been displayed; here is the full list, with the characters from the video footage indicated by an asterisk (*):
Kratos* (God of War)
Sweet Tooth* (Twisted Metal)
Radec* (Killzone)
Parappa the Rapper*
Fat Princess*
Sly Cooper*
Nathan Drake (Uncharted)
Nariko (Heavenly Sword)
Jak and Daxter
Ratchet and Clank
Cole McGrath (inFamous)
Chimera (Resistance)
Sweet Tooth appears to be “smashing” Sly Cooper off this Jak and Daxter-themed stage.
According to game director Omar Kendall (featured in the footage from the Official PlayStation Forum), more characters that have been proposed by the community on the official forums may make an appearance in the game. This would be interesting; a lot of the characters listed above were some that I speculated long before today’s official reveal (Chimera, Cole, Nariko).
Duke It Out On Sony’s Biggest Stage:
The stages shown in the early footage and screenshots of PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale appear to be much like the stages in the Super Smash Brothers series – set in 2D, with plenty of flat ground and platforms to jump around, even plenty of air space for aerial combat. The stages also seem to have one more thing in common: each seems to be composed from the design of two separate Sony games.
You can see the mash-up of God of War and Ratchet and Clank in this image.
For example, one of the stages from the video appears to be a combination of Hades from God of War and Patapon (PSP): the leader of the underworld appears to be fighting off the Patapon in the background as the characters in the foreground duke it out. Another early stage that was shown appears to mash-up Ratchet and Clank with the first God of War, bringing out the three-headed Hydra boss that Kratos first encounters at the beginning of the game.
Some of the stages appear to have special gimmicks that are unique to the featured game: for example, the stage based off the Buzz! series seems to reward players who answer trivia questions correctly mid-battle. I’m not sure how this will fit into the game exactly, or if it will be unique to the Buzz! stage, but it seems to be something very unique for Battle Royale, amongst all the direct comparisons to the Super Smash Brothers titles. My guess is that players will be given health items or other weapons to use in combat, though items similar to those in the Smash Bros. series haven’t made an appearance yet.
The Buzz! stage seems to have a special theme related to answering trivia mid-battle.
Other stages shown in the screenshots in this article appear to be based on LittleBigPlanet and the first Jak and Daxter game, though I’m not sure what games they are “mashed-up” with, like the God of War/Patapon and God of War/Ratchet and Clank stages.
Stacking Up Against Super Smash Brothers:
When it comes to the basic gameplay mechanics and fundamentals, Battle Royale appears to be almost identical to Super Smash Brothers: the 2D combat is almost a mirror image of the system used in the Smash Brothers games, this is obvious enough just from watching the video of the game. For all I can tell, the controls will be the same: characters appear to have moves tied to the four basic directions, as well as “smash”attacks that are designed to send opponents packing. Jumping even seems to work the same way, though I haven’t been able to spot any “triple jump” maneuvers just yet.
Could Parappa’s skateboard be used for a “triple jump” move?
On the other hand, Battle Royale appears to have several factors that separate it from the Super Smash Brothers games that are worth noting. First of all, the art style in the game – much like Super Smash Brothers – is unique to Battle Royale, taking the various styles of the featured characters and re-designing their models for a slick, sleek, all-new look. This appears to go across the board, from the cartooney version of Sweet Tooth to the “flatness” of Parappa the Rapper (which is very true to the original game, actually).
There are two more major differences between Super Smash Bros. and Battle Royale that can be seen in the early footage. First, Sweet Tooth transforms into his mech suit mid-battle; will all characters be able to transform somehow? Will this be unique to certain members of the roster, like Zelda/Shiek in Super Smash Brothers? Also, the heads-up display shown on the screen is much different than the one featured in Nintendo’s franchise: there seems to be a health bar, and a number that I can only assume indicates the number of lives left in battle, or the kills that the player has accumulated.
Mecha Sweet Tooth? Yes please!
For now, that is all we know about PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale…further studying of the video footage may reveal more of the movesets used by each character, but I would prefer to discover some of those surprises as the game gets closer to release. Keep checking back on Game Freaks 365 for more information about Battle Royale, and be sure to let us know what you think of the game in the comments section!
